P R O L O G U E

"Aaaaaaaahhh!!!!.."

The smell of blood, the shattered glasses and the smashed cake on the floor...

Everything terrified me.

Tonight was my 14th birthday but my mother was screaming unbearably.

Her bloodcurdling cries made me tremble as I hid quietly inside the closet.

The devil was brutally stabbing her chest. Countless of times.

Life was so precious, but he was playing and stomping my mother's light like child's play. The sharp dagger easily hacked into the flesh like cutting a piece of jelly. I felt so sick in my stomach that I almost puked my guts out.

He was tall and dark, dressed in a black windbreaker and a black mask. This wasn't the show I wanted, this wasn't the clown act, nor the birthday surprise I deeply anticipated, this was a fucking nightmare.

A fucking nightmare that was turning into a motherfucking reality.

My eyes were bloodshot red and open, burning the painful images inside my mind.

The devil's face was covered in a black mask but his eyes were perfectly visible. His deep pitched-black eyes... There was not an ounce of human emotion that could be seen in his gaze. It was empty and completely lifeless.

I gritted my teeth, clenching my mouth so strongly to stop the pathetic whimpers that was threatening to come out.

'Whatever happens, don't cry, promise me.' My mother seriously demanded before she pushed me inside the closet.

I was dumbfounded and horrified.

'How could she be so cruel? How could she ask me something like that while I watch her die in front of my eyes?'

Quietly, I pressed my trembling hands over my mouth, forcing down the scream and tears that terrorized me. Her last request, my mother's last cruel wish, I had to uphold it...

I was hurt. I was hurting so much as I kept my promise.

She said the devil wouldn't protect me if I was weak... She said he would be the judge if I would live to see another day... I don't know what she was saying... I don't understand her words.

The devil was killing her now. Her body was drowning in her own blood because of him.

'Had she gone mad?'

My beautiful mother, Catherine...

Growing up, I never really understood her.

Some nights, she would suddenly mention that she could never be like 'that woman' and silently cried while hugging me to sleep.

Now, she was gone.

Her excruciating groans finally ceased. I could no longer hear her breathing from inside this small suffocating space.

Shaking heavily, I turned my eyes to my wounded father on the ground. Both his legs were severed by a hatchet. The sight was revolting. Bones protruding and flesh hanging and dangling bloodily. He was barely breathing. Watching him in such a wretched state with no power to help him, slowly broke my heart into pieces.

I was in pain.

Everything was red.

Pure red.

Pure disgusting red.

Watching the sweet kind man who tucked me to bed every night, never forgetting to kiss my forehead and encouraged me---He was slowly dying. My father was dying.

His current state was so pitiful and weak but he forced himself to move, with his last bit of strength left, he suddenly looked at the devil with a smile.

"She would've been ashamed if she could see you right now..." My father softly whispered.

The devil simply gazed at him. He kept quiet. He was so very quiet, even when he stood in front of my father and grabbed his hair viciously that I could almost hear the scalp tearing from his skull.

I almost screamed.

But at that moment, my father glanced at my direction.

He never looked so angry and disappointed at me.

He was telling me to keep quiet.

He was begging me to be a good little girl.

In that instant, something inside me snapped. I felt dead. I felt very weary in my bones. As if this was all a show. A god forbidden show before the surprise party. It was as if I was watching someone else's family getting killed and not mine. I was numb.

But there was also rage. Extreme pure rage...

I never asked for a grand 14th birthday... I never asked God for anything selfish. But why, why did he let the devil inside our home!

As the strong smell of blood grows, I was pulled into a scene that challenged my sanity.

"Protect her...even if it's the last thing you'd do."

My father said, with a small strange smile on his pale face.

His last words echoed inside my head----Bang!----There goes the dreadful sound of a gun followed by a loud thud. My father was dead. The devil killed him too.

My father, Jericho the only man I know who had the brightest smiling eyes was gone. He was gone completely. Just like my sweet mother, Catherine. Their mangled bodies were the only traces left.

Their soulless bodies... It was now an empty vessel. Two dead bodies soon to be buried under the dirt on my very birthday.

Very soon, my breathes turned chaotic. My heart was also ramming violently against my ribcage as if I was drowning in endless water .

It was beating so loudly I thought he could hear it...

And maybe he did...

Because he looked at my direction and stared right back at me. There was the huge cover between us but I know, we both knew. He was studying me and I was observing him. I never felt so small. His soulless orb-like eyes made me feel like he could see right through me.

Nervous.

Helplessness.

Scared beyond reason.

I cowered in fear but I didn't remove my sight from his cold indifferent gaze. There was nothing in his eyes, not even a tinge of a human emotion. Slowly, a disgusting feeling rose in my stomach but I didn't dare make a sound nor did I shed a tear.

Slowly, like a ghost, he came closer.

There was no sound of his footsteps at all. It was eerily silent. I gulped, and closed my eyes.

What I didn't see, was what I didn't know...

Everything was dark...

The dark was my safe place...

Still I could hear the shuffling noises and the sound of the closet opening slowly. My brows furrowed as small beads of sweat ran on my back and forehead. My toes curled so tightly, I felt it ache.

I was trembling like a baby. I know he was now standing in front of me.

Suddenly, I felt a cold sensation around my neck, the iciness making me shudder that I almost whimpered a weak cry. But I didn't. I managed not to let out a sound from my trembling lips. There was a strange feeling in his touch, it was hateful and greedy but then the next minute, utterly careful.

And then he let goes...

Seconds passed by and I hear no sounds.

Cautiously, I opened my eyes....

I froze.

The devil was crouching in front of me. Dressed in a black windbreaker drenched in my parent's blood. The murderous aura, the smell of blood in his body---it made me want to vomit.

Out of the blue, he pinched my chin with his strong calloused fingers, making me look into those emotionless eyes of his.

I saw my reflection in his eyes.

I was weak.

Fragile.

Small.

Instead of fear, I felt something more stronger. Anger.

It angered me. The emptiness in his eyes as if I wasn't even worth killing, as if I was an existence that couldn't even amount to an insect's life.

"Come with me..." A deep husky voice spoke without a fluctuation in his emotion.

My limbs felt weak and my teeth gnashed. My body felt so cold that I thought I was already dead.

Still, I clenched my fists tightly and slowly shook my head in defiance.

"No."

He didn't like that. He didn't like that answer at all.

Because of that, I learned my first lesson about him, the hard way.

He had no pity to spare. Not even for little girls.

With swollen cheeks, and blood dripping from my nose, I struggled and clawed at him, "What did we do to deserve this! You took away my mom and dad! You killed them! You killed them like they were some sort of animals!" I was screaming like a maniac to get away, until I felt a sharp pain against my nape.

"Sleep." He whispered, before I finally lost consciousness and for a second, I thought I heard him murmur something.

"...found you.."